Wow! We have had one crazy weekend. Friday morning we began the major finishing touches for our outreach/promotion of StoneWater. Jason, a lifelong friend of Jeremy's who will be helping us with the church, went and picked up 5000 bottles of water - yes, 5000. About 10:00 Team Church from Fort Worth arrived to help with various projects throughout the weekend. That meant that we averaged 10 people in our home at all times from Friday until Monday afternoon. We had 10,000 business cards which promote our Sneak Peek service on July 10 to distribute along with those bottles of water. Friday afternoon the Team church team set out to various locations around Granbury - downtown, the park, the beach, Wal-Mart - and began giving out free water and cards. At about 4:30 the team returned to our house to begin setting up for our Neighborhood Party. We sent out 159 postcards on Tuesday to invite all the homes in our neighborhood to our house for a "get to know everyone" party. This wasn't a church event, but it did allow us to meet some new friends. Team Church brought a bounce house, snow cone, cotton candy, popcorn machines, did face painting and we had hot dogs, drinks, and chips. It was GREAT! We ended up having about 100 of our neighbors come over and hang out with us...some even came on in after it was over and stayed until about 11:00! I am really excited for our family that we have some new friends, and so do Jenna and Hudson.
Saturday morning the team set out again, all over Granbury to give out water. The day was spent distributing water and cards to continue to promote the Sneak Peek night on July 10.
Sunday things calmed down, a little...we cleaned house and began to prepare for our first church service, Sunday night in our home. I prepared a lesson for Camp Stepping Stone. At 5:30 I was still running around in an old t-shirt and shorts and people began arriving. We had 40 people (29 adults and 11 kids) attend our first service! It was packed! After the service we unloaded water and began preparing our "float" for the parade.
Monday morning we began early to prepare for the parade. Jeremy and I decided we could have a cool float or decorate moms and kids really cute for the ride. We went for the moms and kids. So, we loaded up thousands of bottles of water, ice, and families, and went on the parade route. It was so CRAZY! You can see in the pictures the water troughs that were filled with water bottles and ice. We actually ran out of both, and reloaded on the route - running in convenience stores for water and having a team member meet us on a side road with cases of water. Funny aside - several kids needed snacks and potty breaks along the route, which took about 2 hours to finish. After a quick lunch and nap (thank goodness), we re-grouped for supper at our house and left to finish handing out water at the fireworks.
A big thanks to:
- All of our helpers over the weekend.
- Team Church
- Jay & Debbie Mills
Future events and prayer requests:
- Sneak Peek - July 10, 6:00 pm at Celebration Hall downtown we will have our first public service. Please pray for details and people to come!
- We are now meeting weekly in our home on Sunday nights (minus Sneak Peek night). Continue to pray we find a more permanent place to meet - we're hoping to be in the schools, but no decision has been made.
- Pray for people to serve - we need children's workers among others.
Here are some pictures from Camp SteppingStone last night. Unfortunately I was busy during the actual teaching time, so I don't have any pictures. However, here are pictures of worship time.
